In Between Times
by silversurf4
Summary: Takes place between Charlie's shooting in Trapdoor and Re-Entry when he wakes up. An interlude in Reese's POV.


**In Between Times…**

Takes place in the Second Season, after Crews is shot in Trapdoor and before he wakes up in Re-Entry.

Reese's POV

So here I am, it's three in the morning, inside Crews massive private hospital room, guess $50M buys you a lot of privacy. Apparently, it does not however, make you bulletproof. His family has long since gone back to their hotel room. Funny I never figured on Crews' father being so.... well... let's just say he's nothing like Crews. Kind of a hot head and they don't even look alike. Maybe Crews takes after his mom, I think absently watching the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps. Crews' father and his father's fiancée, Olivia, who does not look like she is eight, which I'll have to remind Crews of when he wakes up… it's just important that he does wake up.

I had no idea how important that would be to me until this exact moment when I had a chance to appreciate the day's events. All the people and noise and questions kept me from thinking about it, all the anticipation and waiting, while Crews was in surgery and there was always someone, something distracting me until now.

So here I am not sleeping in Crews' hospital room, trying (and failing) not to hold Crews' hand. His hand is warmer than I expected, but Crews simply radiates light and energy so I suppose I should have known he'd be warm. There are still traces of his blood in the folds of skin around my knuckles. Little burgundy lines of his blood are still present around the edges of my nail beds, as I turn our conjoined hands over simply looking at us - connected. His blood stuck there when it flowed from the whole in his chest, through my fingers and I couldn't seem to stop it. It leaked through my fingers staining my hand, like Crews has leaked through the cracks in my armor staining my heart – and I'll be damned if I can ever get either of them out.

I can see it clearly like its still happening – I was standing in the marbled foyer of his huge house, trying to figure out who Charlie's father was and why Charlie hated him so, when I heard the shot. I saw him turn as the blood blossomed like a flower on the upper right chest area of his shirt, above the pocket, or where the pocket would have been - had Charlie Crews worn shirts with pockets. But my insanely rich partner must buy insanely expensive shirts with no pockets. It was a strange thought to have - I remember thinking while it was happening. I remember watching him fall and me reaching out to catch him from across the room knowing I couldn't - but unable to stop myself from making the gesture.

He was wearing a pale blue shirt with white vertical stripes and a very tasteful predominantly navy blue patterned tie. I remember thinking this while I was holding my hand to his chest - that maybe it wouldn't look so bad if his shirt wasn't so pale and his blood so dark. I remember thinking that if Crews was here he would tell me that the zebra is not a white animal with dark stripes, but a dark animal with light stripes and me getting annoyed at him for turning whether his shirt was blue with white stripes or white with blue stripes into something we needed to talk about. It wasn't something we needed to talk about, but I would take it from him at that moment. That or any other inane subject he chose to talk about… or fruit ….or him finishing my sentences. I would give just about anything just to hear his voice and know he was still here with me.

It was at that instant that I realized I had let Charlie Crews get far too close to me. For an instant I was more concerned about going to him, being with him, than chasing after the bad guy. I was more a person than a cop then and that split second of indecision was all it took for the shooter to peel out in a dark, late model non-descript sedan we would later find wiped clean of prints and naturally, reported stolen earlier in the day. But the damage was already done to Crews and to us. I remember tossing my phone to his father with terse direction to call 911 and then kneeling beside my still partner with one hand over the hole in his chest, his blood was leaking through my fingers.

I remember being unable to move. I just kept talking to him, uncontrollably talking, which I just don't do. He was gasping, gulping air and I could tell the bullet hit the lobe of his lungs and breathing was tough for him, talking impossible. The tear in our relationship (if you can call it that) widened yet again, when he reached for my hand. I had to know it wasn't me he was reaching for, just contact, just something to keep him in the present. But it felt like Crews reached across the divide that separated me from the rest of the world and pulled me close to him. I found it somewhere I didn't mind being and it felt safe and warm close to Crews. And when he whispered my name, I knew it wasn't just a connection he was reaching for – it was me.

Now I'm sitting here – it's three in the morning. The rest of the world has gone home, been forced to leave, but they couldn't make me leave. The Captain has come and gone, along with Stark and Charlie's friend, Ted, who is strange in the same ways that Crews is sometimes – something they have in common from prison, I suppose. One by one they were all made to leave, forced, threatened or tempted away, but no one even thought about asking me to leave. I guess they knew I wouldn't go. I had to be here with him and somehow none of this feels weird. It feels like there is nowhere else on the planet I should be at this moment, than with my hand wrapped around Charlie Crews'.

He's asleep, still under from the surgery and I'll leave before he wakes up because I can't be here to look in his eyes when he opens them. He'll know, he'll see – I won't be able to hide from him and it scares the shit out of me.

He is paler than usual, which is saying a lot because if Crews were any paler he'd be transparent – you could see his veins through his skin. Freckles grace his brow and mingle with the red hair there, I thought only children had freckles, but Crews still does. I saw them on his shoulders when the medics cut his shirt off exposing his narrow chest and broader than I'd have imagined shoulders. He's got a nice physique, lanky, but still muscular in all the right places. The reddish hair on his chest appeared nearly blonde contrasted against to the deep burgundy of his blood. I saw the scars that litter his chest and back, ones from countless assaults in prison and some of the homemade tattoos they must have held him down to stencil on his pale skin "cop", "pig", like those were insults. To Charlie Crews those were badges of honor and ones that although he had the money, he'd never have removed. He told me once that being a cop was what kept him going all those years in prison. I told him I thought that was a lot of crap, but I know it's not, it's real, and it's Crews.

When Crew opens his eyes, I know they'll be that incredibly indefinable color, not blue, not green, but the shade of a very thick piece of glass or very cold, very still, very clear water. I wonder if he knows that's how I see the world now, like I'm looking through glass colored the shade of Charlie Crews' eyes. He'll smile, like he always does, that tight enigmatic grin of his - not the 1000 kilowatt one that is so bright it makes my head hurt to look at him. His lips look dry, so I take my hand, wet my thumb and cup my hand around his chin, drawing my thumb along the outline of his lips. He shifts in his sleep and my whispered name leaves his lips "Reese" he says quietly and his eyelids with their blonde lashes flutter trying to wake.

I move closer, which I know I shouldn't do - but can't seem to help doing. I speak to him in a low voice, but one I know he can hear because he eases as I begin talking to him. "Crews, I'm here. It's okay, you're safe now." His fingers flex around mine and I know he knows I'm there on some level. I lean forward and kiss his freckled brow, leaning close to inhale "that scent", the one that is uniquely Charlie Crews.

I am struck at once by a realization, I didn't need to get drunk to visit Crews' house, and I didn't need to get drunk to talk to him or to ask him about my dad. I needed to get drunk to forget that even while weekending with my boyfriend, he was ever present in my thoughts. Crews, Charlie freaking Crews, he was seeping into my brain, inhabiting my heart and stealing my soul and he was doing it all without really trying. All he did was trust me, respect me and have faith in me. He was becoming that something that I couldn't imagine life without. I wondered if he even knew he was doing it; if he was aware of the effect he was having on my attempt to quietly work through my problems.

Until Crews came along I was keeping my head down and plodding through the job getting back into the Department's good graces by just doing my job as silently and effectively as possible. But Crews, he was not interested in being quiet or in being invisible to the LAPD. He wasn't afraid of them, he wasn't afraid of what anyone thought or said, because what's really worse than being convicted of a murder you didn't commit, of spending twelve years in prison with miscreants, rapists and felons. Sometimes I could forget what happened to Crews, he seemed so …gentle, so understanding, so disarming at times I almost forgot who I was with him and who he was. But there were other times…

I built such high walls to keep the world out. Capable of withstanding full frontal assaults, I could repel the strongest comers, but Crews he didn't attack, he was like water. He seemed incapable of doing anything harmful but he could get anywhere, seep through anything. Water can split rocks when it freezes. I've seen pictures on TV of water wiping away cities and laying waste to entire islands. But everyone needs water – without it we all die; it was perfect, so perfectly Crews – he was in and of himself - a force of nature.

I don't mean to, it's just that I'm so damned tired. It's been a long couple of days. I just intended to rest my head there for a minute on the bed beside him. When I wake, its several hours later and daylight is slicing through the slats in the blinds. Funny that no nurses or doctors disturbed us, every time I've been in the hospital they wake you up every five minutes just to make sure you still need the bed, but then like I said, I guess all that money buys you a lot of privacy. Crews hand is tangled in my hair and somehow I am closer to the bed than I remember being. He is warm and when I move to leave his eyes open and he looks directly through me. "Dammit" I swear, I think under my breath, but apparently not under my breath enough. "Reese" he says quietly "honey, you should go home, you look tired".

He's still doped up and his hand is still tangled in my hair, he still so close, so warm and his eyes glassy but still so incredibly piercing. I'll never really be sure who moved first, whether he pulled or I leaned, all I remember is that suddenly I was kissing him or he was kissing me. His lips are still dry, my tongue moves to wet them and what started as a sweet goodbye, becomes something else entirely and when we break apart - we both know it. I pray that when the drugs wear off it's something he won't remember, but I know it confirms something I can't forget.

As I turn to leave, I pull the door open and speak to him with my back turned, "Go to sleep Charlie. Get some rest. I'll come by later to check on you."

"Yes, mom" he teases in response.

I turn, expecting to give him a dark look that will shut him up, but he is smiling, that odd little smile of his – the one that makes me think he knows something it will take the rest of us days, weeks or years to figure out. I end up smiling back and countering lightly "and leave the nurses alone, Charlie."

Our relationship is changing, no scratch that, it has changed and I'm not really sure I want to go back to what it was before. Life with Crews will be complex, dangerous and more than a little infuriating, but what is life without some degree of complexity and risk – and the driving me crazy part…well, that's just classic Crews. Maybe he'll remember this "moment", maybe he won't. It will be in the past by then, but it's our past together and perhaps our future together that gets me through this day and the next.


End file.
